Can You Start Vine Seeds Indoors?

A few months ago I was itching to get a head start on some warm season garden goodies so I started some seeds indoors really early.  I had the space so I figured I’d give it a try and see if I could get some cucumbers, watermelon and cantaloupe earlier than usual.  It’s time to take a look at my seedling experiment results to see if it worked. Is it a good idea to start vine seeds indoors?

It turned out be a bit of a mess pretty much from the beginning but I went ahead with my plans.  Most of my gardening plans get thrown out the window because…well… life just happens and other things take my attention.  I waited too long to transplant them so they were a tangled mess since they’re vines.  Only about half of them looked even remotely healthy enough to plant.  Check out my earlier post about getting them in the ground.  This is what became of those very sad looking transplants.

 

Watermelon Seedlings Started Indoors

The best looking one was a watermelon.  I had the highest hopes for that one but it actually performed the worst. It grew a little but then died very quickly.  I’m not sure why.  A few weeks ago (late May), I finally got around to pulling out my broccoli plants near where I had planted the watermelon.  Just the other day (mid June), I noticed a tiny little watermelon seedling!  It’s not the same one I planted but probably a volunteer from the watermelon I grew in the area two years ago.  So, I guess it all worked out in the end.  I meant to direct sow a few seeds but never got around to it.  It may be a bit late but I’ll try it anyway and see what happens.

Related Post – How to Start Seeds in Soil Blocks

 

Cantaloupe Seedlings Started Indoors

The two cantaloupe seedlings just sat there looking pitiful until it really started to warm up a few weeks ago.  They’re still pretty small but they’re putting out a lot of flowers and quite of a few of them are female flowers.  Yippee!  That’s always good to see.  Nothing worse than seeing a ton of male flowers and few females.

 

Speaking of flower gender issues….

 

Cucumber Seedlings Started Indoors

Here are those cucumber seedlings.  Surprisingly, only one died.  I did plant a few seeds to fill in the area a bit more because not all of the seeds I started survived long enough to be transplanted.  It quickly became a tangled mess so I really can’t tell how well the transplants are doing vs the direct sown seeds.  Regardless, that’s a mess of cucumber vines!

But there’s one small problem…I have a ton of male flowers and almost no females!  I harvested 4 cucumbers in early June which was just enough to make a quart of refrigerator pickles.  But so far there are no other cucumbers in the making.  I hand pollinated a few and I noticed that very little (if any) pollen got on my paintbrush.  Those ended up dying so I think I also have a low pollen issue.  I’ve been hand pollinating the cantaloupe and my paint brush sparkles with the golden pollen.  That’s definitely not the case with the cucumbers.  Sigh…I think this year may be a bust with them even though the vines look great.  We’re over a 100 degrees now so I’m not sure they’ll produce much more until it cools off a bit.

Related Post – How to Hand Pollinate How to Hand Pollinate

 

Males vs Females – in the flower world

Too many male flowers vs female flowers is a common problem with squash especially early in the season.  A few years ago, I reached out to some local horticulture pros who focus on growing food to see if there was a scientific reason for it and they just shrugged.  I’m hoping there’s an answer out there somewhere and I’ll get back to looking now that I’m having the issue with cucumbers.  I’m hoping it’s something I can correct or perhaps prevent next time.  And may be while I’m digging I’ll find a reason for the seemingly pollen-less flowers.  Anyone have any ideas?!

 

Should I try to start vine seeds indoors again?

So, there ya have it.  I’m not sure that I’ll try starting these early and indoors again.  The results are mixed.  Even though the cantaloupe seedlings are growing now, they just sat there until it warmed up quite a bit.  I thought the cucumbers would do well with planting early since they’re not crazy about our summer heat but they didn’t take off quickly either.  Even though they look great now, they’re not producing.

Have you had luck starting warm season vines inside to get a jump start on production?

Related Posts

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Happy Gardening!